LAS VEGASI needed to take a trip to Walgreens here at CES, so I hopped into a demo car from ICO, which has launched the world's biggest commercial satellite to beam TV into millions of cars next year.

They gave me some more details of their system, which is based on the international DVB-SH standard. The ICO mim TV system uses a satellite signal reinforced with ground-based repeaters to connect auto passengers with 10-15 channels of TV, plus navigation, emergency assistance, and even Web-based instant messaging.

The system runs on the S-band, which is near the 2,100-Mhz cellular band used by European 3G cell phone systems. But because it's a broadcast system, ICO needs far fewer repeaters than a cellular network would; they're covering Las Vegas with two towers, plus the satellite.

Many countries will be using DVB-SH equipment on the S-Band, so there won't be the sort of "U.S. versus the world" division you see in traditional TV and cellular. That's going to make mim-compatible equipment cheap, according to Alcatel-Lucent, who makes the network equipment.

The demo system I saw had an innovative gesture-based user interface where you scribble shapes on a big touch screen to launch it into navigation or instant-messaging mode, for instance. (You can also tap traditional icons.) Channels took a few seconds to switch, but hey, it's an early demo system. Video quality looked pretty much like standard-def home TV: a bit fuzzy for people used to HDTV, but definitely watchable on a 7-inch backseat screen.

My major complaint with mim was the channel selection--second-rate entertainment and no sports. But the folks in the car said they were demoing with content they got for free; the final version will have news, sports, and entertainment, including popular channels such as Comedy Central and Nickelodeon, they said.

The ICO folks sounded quite positive about tomorrow's upcoming Mobile DTV announcement, which will herald local TV stations using their own broadcast spectrum to send out signals to cars and phones. They've already devised a way to combine Mobile DTV and mim in one vehicle, they said. That will give auto passengers access to local news, sports and entertainment programming, but also to national cable-TV-like services both in ICO-covered cities and out on the open road, where satellite coverage will rule.

PCMag.com's lead mobile analyst, Sascha Segan, has reviewed hundreds of smartphones, tablets and other gadgets in more than 9 years with PCMag. He's the head of our Fastest Mobile Networks project, one of the hosts of the daily PCMag Live Web show and speaks frequently in mass media on cell-phone-related issues. His commentary has appeared on ABC, the BBC, the CBC, CNBC, CNN, Fox News, and in newspapers from San Antonio, Texas to Edmonton, Alberta.
Segan is also a multiple award-winning travel writer, having contributed...
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